... and the young see nothing,
they're moving too fast; they're bouncing off the walls, they're going
from one adventure to the next they don't even stop to name the flowers
or the trees; nowadays I can tell you the names of trees, it's a big
breakthrough, believe me.
Clive James, BBC Front Row, 3.4.15
Yesterday evening, upon listening to Clive James being interviewed, I got the impression as the above quote suggests that he didn't know the half of it until he was confined to a deathbed. He was forever bouncing off the walls, and going from one adventure to the next. To the point where, finally, confined to stillness by force, he had time to contemplate, truly contemplate the grounds of life, death, and existence.
In the anti-contemplative society, the state of stillness is the archenemy of business.
'Perhaps collectively, man is subject to an inevitable self-destroying madness, if he does not question and understand the real purpose of his existence,' write William Corlett & John Moore in The Islamic Space.
And this is what is happening. Man destroys (de-structures) his self every day by not questioning and understanding the real purpose of his existence. To the point where, when death finally comes knocking, the self is so fragmented that it doesn't know what to do. It frets and fears the coming of the dark. But it needn't be like this. Contemplation opens up the organ of death within us, allows us to commune with it. Near death experiences needn't be so panic-stricken. Indeed, in Zen Buddhism, they speak of the moment of satori (kensho, awakening) almost as if it were an NDE, the moment when one sees clearly into one's true nature, and when all anxiety disappears, replaced by an overwhelming sense of peace.
One can 'die' then whilst still alive, but in order to do this one requires a certain stillness, a certain tranquility that allows one to plumb the depths of self, unimpeded. Distractions and diversions are counterproductive to this process of dying.
DEAD ATOP DUNGLASS
Up on the plug
whose side profile from the east
resembles a stretched phantom’s face
battered by the wind
hovering above the heather
gazing all around
one’s capacity to die whilst still alive
increases
faced with such sights and weather:
the fells
the valley
the moor
the wind.
It’s long division enlightenment
where you throw off the shackles of the body whilst still living in it:
dead whilst still alive,
Nirvana with a remainder,
fractioned sartori -
the flaming torch upon the hill crest -
Elysium -
in the wind.
Atop Dunglass in 2006 (when I had hair)...
In the anti-contemplative society, the state of stillness is the archenemy of business.
'Perhaps collectively, man is subject to an inevitable self-destroying madness, if he does not question and understand the real purpose of his existence,' write William Corlett & John Moore in The Islamic Space.
And this is what is happening. Man destroys (de-structures) his self every day by not questioning and understanding the real purpose of his existence. To the point where, when death finally comes knocking, the self is so fragmented that it doesn't know what to do. It frets and fears the coming of the dark. But it needn't be like this. Contemplation opens up the organ of death within us, allows us to commune with it. Near death experiences needn't be so panic-stricken. Indeed, in Zen Buddhism, they speak of the moment of satori (kensho, awakening) almost as if it were an NDE, the moment when one sees clearly into one's true nature, and when all anxiety disappears, replaced by an overwhelming sense of peace.
One can 'die' then whilst still alive, but in order to do this one requires a certain stillness, a certain tranquility that allows one to plumb the depths of self, unimpeded. Distractions and diversions are counterproductive to this process of dying.
DEAD ATOP DUNGLASS
Up on the plug
whose side profile from the east
resembles a stretched phantom’s face
battered by the wind
hovering above the heather
gazing all around
one’s capacity to die whilst still alive
increases
faced with such sights and weather:
the fells
the valley
the moor
the wind.
It’s long division enlightenment
where you throw off the shackles of the body whilst still living in it:
dead whilst still alive,
Nirvana with a remainder,
fractioned sartori -
the flaming torch upon the hill crest -
Elysium -
in the wind.
Atop Dunglass in 2006 (when I had hair)...
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